Gokudera Hayato: Researcher Extraordinaire
by sakimidare
Summary: Gokudera couldn't believe that he was getting an opportunity to research with real live - erm, dead - ghosts! It was like a dream come true!  The others only sweatdropped. 2759,GiottoG,1869,DS,ShouichixSpanner, 100Yuni, 8096, BelMammon and more.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I actually wanted to do a Ghost Hunt AU here, but! Someone already made one. Which is really good, cos hers/his is so much better than what I could ever do, but ... ahem! I desist!**

**Pairings: Main: ghost!2759, ghost!18xghost!69**

**Side: ghost!100x Yuni, ghost!Shouichixghost!Spanner, ghost!GiottoxG, AlaudexFon, DaemonxElena, ghost!LalxColonello, DInoxSqualo, YamamotoxChrome, BelMammon, maybe more.**

**Hope you enjoy!  
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Gokudera was bored.

And bad things tended to happen when Gokudera got bored.

The school cafeteria blew itself up, the locker-room blew itself up, the garden -

- well, things generally tended to 'blow themselves up' when Gokudera got bored. Which was why he had been expelled from about every school in Italy and Europe and had had to come to study in Japan.

"So what can I blow up _here_?" he wondered aloud, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Kufufu, I wonder. What indeed?" a voice answered him.

The silverette had obviously not been expecting this, as testified by the five sticks of dynamites he promptly lobbed in the general direction of the voice.

**"Ehhhh?"** A voice came from the opposite direction. "Why did you blow Mukuro-_kun _up? Not that I'm complaining ..."

"_Oya oya_! Just _who_ blew _whom_ up, marshmallow freak?"

"B-Byakuran-_san_! Mukuro-_san_! Please stop this." another voice spoke up, followed by a slow drawl with a foreign accent. "Don't overstrain youself, Shouichi, you'll get another stomach-ache."

"Shou-_chan_?" the voice which Gokudera assumed belonged to this Byakuran person spoke up, sparkling.

Yes, Gokudera wasn't even kidding. The voice _sparkled_.

"Eeep! Spanner, my stomach hurts..." Shou-_chan _or Shouichi's panicked voice came out in a squeak.

"Stay away from him, Byakuran." Spanner drawled.

"Kufufu, bullying poor Shouchi-_kun_ again?" the first voice - Mukuro, was it? -spoke up again.

Gokudera felt it necessary to interject at this point.

"WHY THE HELL CAN'T I SEE A SINGLE ONE OF YOU?" he accused loudly, pointing his finger at the thin air in the general direction of Shouichi's voice. He seemed far nicer than the others and more probable to give him the answer.

"Erm ... because ..." Shouichi's voice trailed off.

"Oya oya, this is rather hard to explain."

"Ahaha, its as Mukuro-kun says!"

"Its because we are ghosts." Spanner drawled.

"Really!" Gokudera felt pretty sure his eyes were sparkling. " You mean real ghosts?"

"Uh ... yes?" Mukuro's voice sounded suddenly wary.

"I-its scary how he's so prepared to believe it... people usually don't ..." Shouichi squeaked.

"Ahaha, maybe I'll give you one of my marshmallows for being a good boy!"

"BYAKURAN-SAN! He's not a dog!"

"But it makes this more convenient, doesn't it?" Spanner's lazy drawl came.

"Mukuro-kun was right when he said this one might hear us! I should reward Mukuro-kun nicely~!" Byakuran's voice was sparkling once again.

"Stop doing that with your voice. Its weird." Mukuro muttered. "And I don't want your 'rewards'. Thanks to you, marshmallows make me break out in hives."

"Awww, but marshmallows aree so-"

"What are you doing, silver-headed-kid?" They all looked at Gokudera at Spanner's question.

And stared.

And stared.

And sweat-dropped unanimously.

Gokudera had a notebook out, and was scribbling at a high speed, mumbling things like 'marshmallows seem to be a weakness' and 'prone to stomach aches'.

"Making a database on the first real ghosts I've ever met!" he replied, not looking up.

"Errr..."

"I wonder if its alright to ask him?"

"I-I suddenly feel I'd rather risk Byakuran than him." Mukuro mumbled, eyebrows twitching.

"Ahaha, I'm glad, Mukuro-kun!" At Byakuran's sparkly voice, Mukuro decided to take matters in his own hands.

"Go-ku-de-ra-kun." he read from the notebook Gokudera was currently scribbling in, "How would you like an opportunity to study us up close for as long as you like?"

"ARE YOU SERIOUS!" Gokudera's ecstatic scream made him jump backwards, even though he was invisible to the silverette.

"If you let me do something like that ,...! I have always wanted to meet a ghost ...! If ... if I could research on live ghosts ( 'But we're all dead, you know.' the four simultaneously though and sweat-dropped.) ..."

"I take it you are not completely opposed to the idea?" Mukuro pressed, trying to disregard Byakuran's invisible but very much not-insensible hurt look and pout directed at him.

"Not at all! It would be an honour! My dream come true!" Gokudera had no idea how much he resembled a puppy wagging his small tail right then.

"Then how about we offer you all that, in exchange for a place to stay?"

"Place to ... Certainly! You are welcome to stay at my home if you want!" Gokudera nodded vigorously. Living together equalled more research time and more in depth information about their lifestyle. This was certainly an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As they all trailed happily after the silverette ( who decided the occasion merited skipping school - oh, who was he kidding, he would have skipped school anyway! ) minor grumblings could be heard.

"Uwah, Mukuro-kun! I thought you said you would stay with me?"

"I changed my mind after your sparkly voice, kufufu ..."

Shouichi and Spanner sweat-dropped.

-_-;;;;;

G was fuming as he wrestled with a pan, the same way he had been wrestling with other pots and pans for the last - one glance at the clock confirmed this - two and a half hours.

"I'm in the damn Mafia for God's sake!" he screeched, managing to succesfully burn his hand - yet again. "Not a baby-sitter! What the goddamn Hell was Gokudera thinking when he put me in charge of fucking Hayato of all people?"

Oh, right.

_"Get that brat out of my sight if you don't want _me_ to blow _him _up."_

Although it would have been a nice change from the brat blowing everyone and everything else (and occasionally himself) up, G wasn't sure he could deal with the paperwork that would inevitably follow any blowing up incidents again.

Because yes, Mr. Gokudera _was_ that cruel, and _would_ push all the paperwork over to him. It wasn't for nothing that he was known as a ruthless Boss - his methods of torture were far more saidstic than any other G had encountered, and involved paperwork.

Lots and lots of paperwork.

Enough to make G take Hayato and randomly packed baggage, and take the next plane out of Europe to goddamn Japan.

"I swear to God, if I had been aware this was included in the job description of a right hand man, I would have fucking ran the opposite direction the moment he approached me." the pinkette (?) mumbled. Well, if it can be called mumbling even when it could probably be heard about one mile away.

In all honesty, G probably hadn't known better at the time he was 'approached' anyway.

_"Be my right hand man!" his older brother commanded, pointing a gun at his face._

_"Ummm... sure. Why not?" the pink-haired boy might have an explosive temper, but he also happened to have a brain, which he really didn't want to see splattered all over the wall. Though he wouldn't be seeing it if it came to that, but ... well, you get the drift._

Oh, and all these happened when G was 6 and his older brother 11.

You are welcome to rant about the kind of parents that let an 11-year-old anywhere near a gun. The answer would be easy and in one word : _Mafia_.

Having effectively convinced himself of the illegitimacy of his own parents and his brother, and having decided he must have been adopted because insanity apparently ran in the family, G tried to concentrate on cooking again.

!

G yelped, burning his hand for the eighteen-fucking-th time as he hurried to open the door.

SLAM!

Wait a minute ...

"WHY DID YOU RING THE BELL WHEN YOU HAD A KEY YOU BRAT!"

"STOP FUCKING YELLING YOU OLD MAN!"

"LIKE HELL WILL I STOP YELLING! I BURNT MY HAND THANKS TO YOU!"

"WHY DO YOU NEED TO COOK ANYWAY? ARE YOU A HOUSEWIFE?"

There was no saying how long their shouting match would have continued, if, out of thin air, a raven-haired boy hadn't appeared all of a sudden, making G gape and Gokudera become even more excited.

"You two are loud."

"There's a ghost in our house too? Or are you an alien?" Gokudera fumbled in ecstasy, searching for his notebook.

_' ... however we view it he's still taking this way too normally ...'_ Shouichi, Mukuro and Spanner thought, sweat-dropping yet again. Byakuran was lost in his marshamllowy dreams and probably thinking of marshmallows and sparkles and unicorns made of marshmallows. If he was thinking at all.

The boy ignored Gokudera and turned to where the four invisible ghosts were, pointing at them.

"Get out. This is my territory."

"EHHHHHHH!" Byakuran, successfully brought down from his Marshmallow Land by the threat of having their new residence taken away, protested indignantly. "But there's nowhere else we can go!"

"Our residence was pulled down." Spanner offered monotnously.

"M-my stomach hurts." Shouichi slumped down, all of them visible.

"Shall we take this outside?" Mukuro held up a trident.

"MUKURO!" the other three cried.

"Kufufu, he's the one that started it!" Mukuro pointed out, sounding uncannily like a little boy and pouting like one, though nobody pointed it out to him because he would invariably kill them if they did. Painfully. Slowly. And probably torture them before that. Horribly. "Besides, if we can't, why's he getting to stay here?"

"HIEEEEE! HOW DID YOU KNOW I WAS HERE?" a brunette exclaimed, falling down at Gokudera's foot, pulling off the 'from thin air' trick again. G was getting bored of everyone appearing from thin air. Was it a new trend or what?

"You're a ghost that specialises in camouflaging itself from other spirits and psychics." Mukuro smirked, "But I'm a spirit that has a high level of ... spirituality?" he trailed off, frowning. It ahdn't sounded as grand as he had intended it to, probably because he had no idea why or how he had discovered the brunette either.

"..." the raven-haired man contemplated this. "He can stay. So can the other two, as long as they stay away from the second floor. That's completely mine. They're just small animals. You -" pointing at Mukuro, " - and you." at Byakuran - "Leave before I bite you to death."

"Oya oya, is that a compliment?" Mukuro smirked - when does he _not_ smirk? - "However, I'm not too pleased about it since its making you kick me out."

"Try to, at any rate." Byakuran smiled. Mukuro's smile twitched.

"Look, if you don't let me stay, I have to put up with this annoying guy, watching him perv out on a little girl everyday." he pleaded. Yes, Byakuran made even _Mukuro_ plead, what with his sparkly voice and apparent pervertness.

"...shouldn't you protect the little girl?" G asked.

"She _likes_ him doing it!" Mukuro defended hotly. Hotly as in a small beam of fire suddenly erupted from the floor.

"HIEEEEEE!" the brunette promptly became invisible to everyone.

"MUKURO!" Shouichi screamed.

"...I have to make you something to control that power of yours ..." Spanner noted.

"THE CARPETING!" G yelled.

"Its just an illusion." Mukuro mumbled, trying not to look shame-faced, because dammit! Mukuros don't look shame-faced! That's for ten-year-old boys caught with their hands in a cookie jar, or twenty-year-old boys caught with their hands down another boy's pants.

Ehem. Just. Please. Ignore that. Please.

Mukuro's mind is a scary place. You don't want to know. Trust me on this.

"... have certain powers..." Gokudera muttered, his tongue sticking out a little as he scribbled everything down.

"Mister? Are you alright?" The brunette ghosts voice came, "Mister with pink hair?"

"Its red." G replied absent mindely. "And yes, thank you for asking. I was just wondering that if this porves I'm really a Gokudera. I certainly have the insanity for it."

**A/N: Review and ... and... I have nothing to offer otl.**

**Erm, KHR characters will give you hugs? /tonfa'd, bomb'd, trident'd, HDW'd, Mosca'd,/**

**Byakuran: Free hugs~~~ 3**

**Everyone else: -sweat drops-**

**Yamamoto: Ahaha, I'll join in!**

**Mukuro: -eye twitch- You! Are you cheating on my cute Chrome?**

**Hibari: Hn. Stop crowding around, herbivores.**

**Me: -beaten and in a corner of doom- Please feel for my pain and review T^T**


	2. Chapter 2: Intersection

**A/N: Alright, so I wanted to explore Gokudera and Tsuna's relationship had Tsuna not saved his life and gave him a place. Don't worry, though, I'll get it back into the canon by the next - or, at the very most, the one after that - chapter.**

**Because I like 2759. /shot/**

**Also, to clear something up, the thing about Tsuna being invisible to everyone and the way the Ghost concept works in this story.**

**Ghosts can make themselves visible or invisible on will. But even when they are being visible, not many people can see them. The Gokudera family are one of the rare ones where most members can see spirits (and sense their presence even when they are invisible) - this includes Gokudera, G, Bianchi and Lavina...? Was that Gokudera's mum's name?**

**The reason some ghosts have certain powers ( like Mukuro and his illusions, Tsuna and his camouflage ) is because I adopted an idea from a book I can't remember the name of, it was basically that when people pass on to the next life, their special - but not necessarily inhuman - abilities become more concentrated and higher leveled. Mukuro can use 'illusions' ( or basically 'fool' others) because he used to be extremely charismatic and capable of easily manipulating others. Tsuna has the power to camouflage himself from most spirits because he used to be a victim of bullying and thus learned to blend into the crowds for his own safety ( a wall flower.) Not everyone, of course, has these kinds of abilities. And Mukuro could tell Tsuna because I needed someone to see his presence for him to show himself/shot/ I-I mean since being 'invisible' - so to speak, requires some people manipulation skills as well, and Mukuro caught onto it.**

**As for why Gokudera senses his presence in this chapter, I borrowed a pretty common concept - people the spirits hold dear are more sensitised to the presence of ( only ) that particular spirit. (Step on the 2759, wut! /shot again/)**

**Erm, thank you for all the story alerts/favs/reviews?**

**Word Count: 1,327.**

**Chapter 2: Intersection**

Gokudera woke up to find G sitting in the small bar the elder man had secured for himself despite Gokuder's sister's protests ( "I won't let you corrupt my little brother's innocent ears with your drunken rants!"

"For fuck's sake Sis, just fucking let it go."

"..."

"So, he's really not as innocent as you think, Bianchi." G had concluded, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Which is why I need the alcohol in the first place.") which in and of itself would have been perfectly normal, if ...

"What are you two doing here?" Gokduera asked his two precious research materials - cough, Spanner and Shouichi.

The white haired ghost, having introduced himself as Byakuran Gesso, had already gone back to trace 'his Uni-chan' ( "No really, I can't leave that dear child alone! What if she's scared wihtout me?") at which point Rokudo Mukuro - the one with indigo hair styled like a pineapple ( and the one who hated being called a pineapple, as Gokudera had learnt after he tried to stab Gokudera when the silverette asked him if he liked pineapples and that was why his hair was styled like one ) had observed that Byakuran was more likely to scare the 'poor girl', whoever she was.

"Well, we were celebrating the breaking up of porcupineapple." Spanner replied seriously.

"... porcupineapple?" Gokudera asked.

At this point, G, who had been drinking himself to sleep, suddenly turned to Gokudera, his eyes showing so much relief that Gokudera half wondered if the rosette had somehow convinced his father to let the other leave Gokudera here and go back home.

"You can see them too?"

"Byakuran and Mukuro. They keep on fighting like an old married couple." Spanner replied, apparently ignoring G. After a moment's consideration, Gokudera decided to follow his example and ignore G's expectant stare.

"Why do they fight so much anyway?"

"It doesn't matter .. you are just as insane as the rest of us." G mumbled to himself, face dimming like someone had just switched off a 500-watt bulb.

"It had something to do with how they died. I'm not sure about what really happened, though ..." Shouichi spoke up, looking a little brighter than he had been the last day.

"HIEEEE!" the brunette ghost landed at Gokudera's feet. Gokudera rolled his eyes and gave him a little nudge with his feet. He could already tell this ghost was completely useless.

"AHHH! I'm sorry! I-"

"Spying on the silverette herbivore again?" a dark voice said, followed by a murderous aure.

"Oya oya, you all sure are lively." Mukuro's voice spoke up from behind where the dark-haired ghost from yesterday loomed over them from his perch near the ceiling.

SLAM!

"HIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Between the brunette's incoherent spluttering and the clangs of a trident ( " Can materialise trident from thin air" - Gokduera added under "Mukuro Rokudo" ) and tonfas ( " Where did those even come from?" Shouichi asked Spanner, who frowned. "Shouldn't you be used to that, what with Byakuran and Mukuro materialising their marshmallows and tridents from air all the time?") from the raven-haired ghost, who still hadn't had the common courtesy to offer them his name - or really, talk to any of them besides the first occasion and the occasional terrorising of the poor brunette ghost, Gokudera could hear G reach the ( very, unnecessarily) loud conclusion that he must be a Gokudera, after all.

* * *

><p>The next day, Gokudera - once again - skipped school.<p>

It was somewhere between his seventeenth cigarette and tenth time of blowing some random thing or the other up that he became aware of another presence.

Looking back, however, he couldn't see anyone around him. The street he was currently walking on stretched straight ahead, devoid of a single soul.

So, in true Gokudera Hayato style, Gokudera attempted to sense the rough direction he was getting the strange feeling from, and threw twenty bombs simultaneously in the direction.

"HIEEEEEE!" A familiar voice greeted his 'friendly' greeting. "G-Gokudera-kun! Please don't d-do that again!"

...what boy even had a voice that high?

Well, now that he knew who was following him, Gokudera could finally do his own stuff ( read : blow things up, blow more things up, and then blow yet some more things up ) epacefully.

...Wait.

Wait wait wait wait WAIT.

He whipped around, body easing into an offensive stance, trusty dynamites in the ready.

"Why are you following me, bastard?" he snarled, before almost regretting it as the boy flinched back, looking terrified. Almost.

"I-I-I-I-I-"

"Stop fucking stuttering." he cried out exasperated, unable to hold on to his threatening demeanour once the large brown eyes started filling up with ( to Gokudera's constrenation )_ tears._

His words, however, only served to make the boy look even more like he was going to faint outright.

"Fine." the silverette snapped, trying to bring his irritated tone ( somewhat ) under control, "I'll listen to your worthless excuses, and I won't even blow you up. Stop crying like a whiny sissy and tell me why you were following me."

Though his words were pretty harsh, Gokudera was surprised to see the boy blinking his tears away and smile brightly at him, before he ran up to him, falling in pace with the silverette.

"So what are you here for?" Gokudera was caught between being impressed and being scornful - impressed that the boy had managed to control himself so easily, and scornful because the rapid swing of mood was just like that in a child - and settled for being nonchalant.

"Well, I haven't been outside for a long time - actually, I haven't been outside ever since I died, and for some reason I really felt like coming outside and revisiting the places I used to like as a human being." the boy chattered, surprisingly not stuttering even once, before a wistful smile that made something in Gokudera's heart ache spread over his face. "... Seems like most of the places aren't there anymore, though. So I was just wandering around and saw you and I was sort of lost and ..." he trailed off, face falling as he looked at Gokudera. "Y-you aren't mad at me, are you?"

Gokudera glared at the ground. In reality, the only person he was mad at was himself. He had completely forgotten the fact that these people had been alive too, just like him. In fact, he had been treating them like research subjects continually, and the mere thought suddenly made him want to kick himself.

There was also the fact that even though he couldn't have known what the brunette was doing out here, he wanted to hurt something when he looked at that sad little smile on the other boy's face. Not to mention the fact that he never wanted to see it again ...

"Stop smiling like an idiot. If you want to cry, then do it. Seriously, the idiots I put up with ..."

If he had paused to look up at the other's face instead of glaring at the ground, he might have noticed the sudden change in Tsuna's smile, which went from being wistful to thankful before disappearing altogether as the shorter boy let the tears he had been saving up ever since** that night** finally fall, sniffling occasionally and blowing his nose into the handkerchief Gokudera had silently offered him ( all the while glaring in the opposite direction, but not protesting when the brunette had leaned against him to support his sobbing frame. )

**A/N: ... well.**

**This chapter turned out more dramatic than I usually do.**

**I actually didn't want to get this deep in, just keep it a light-hearted fic, but ...**

**Eh, what's done is done.**

**Sorry for the late update^^**


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